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Moloka'i Paperback – October 4, 2004

by Alan Brennert (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 9,349 ratings
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This richly imagined novel, set in Hawai'i more than a century ago, is an extraordinary epic of a little-known time and place---and a deeply moving testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.

Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, dreams of visiting far-off lands like her father, a merchant seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, and those dreams are stolen from her. Taken from her home and family, Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa, the quarantined leprosy settlement on the island of Moloka'i. Here her life is supposed to end---but instead she discovers it is only just beginning.

With a vibrant cast of vividly realized characters, Moloka'i is the true-to-life chronicle of a people who embraced life in the face of death. Such is the warmth, humor, and compassion of this novel that "few readers will remain unchanged by Rachel's story" (mostlyfiction.com).

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Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 2
    Moloka'i
  2. Print length
    400 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    October 4, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    5.6 x 1 x 8.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0312304358
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0312304355
  8. See all details
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Popular Highlights in this book
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Previous page
  1. “Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.”
    Highlighted by 1,862 Kindle readers
  2. Before Cook’s arrival the native population of Hawai'i was more than a quarter of a million people; a hundred years later, it had plummeted to fewer than sixty thousand.
    Highlighted by 1,168 Kindle readers
  3. This was life, and if some things were kapu, others weren’t; she had to stop regretting the ones that were and start enjoying the ones that were not.
    Highlighted by 804 Kindle readers
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A dazzling historical novel.” ―The Washington Post

“Moloka'i is a haunting story of tragedy in a Pacific paradise.” ―Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek

“Alan Brennert draws on historical accounts of Kalaupapa and weaves in traditional Hawaiian stories and customs.... Moloka'i is the story of people who had much taken from them but also gained an unexpected new family and community in the process.” ―Chicago Tribune

“[An] absorbing novel...Brennert evokes the evolution of--and hardships on--Moloka'i in engaging prose that conveys a strong sense of place.” ―National Geographic Traveler

“Moving and elegiac.” ―Honolulu Star-Bulletin

“Compellingly original...Brennert's compassion makes Rachel a memorable character, and his smooth storytelling vividly brings early twentieth-century Hawai'i to life.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A stunning story of hope...captivating." ―Woman's World

"Captivating." ―Never Ending Story

About the Author

Alan Brennert is a novelist (Time and Chance) as well as an Emmy Award-winning screenwriter (L.A. Law). He lives in Southern California, but his heart is in Hawai'i.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition (October 4, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312304358
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312304355
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.6 x 1 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 9,349 ratings

About the author

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Alan Brennert

Alan Brennert

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Alan Brennert is the author of the best-selling historical novels MOLOKA'I and HONOLULU, both favorites of reading groups across the country. MOLOKA'I was a 2012 "One Book, One San Diego" selection and HONOLULU was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Washington Post. PEOPLE Magazine said of his novel PALISADES PARK, "Brennert writes his valentine to the New Jersey plaground of his youth in RAGTIME style, mixing fact and fiction. It's a memorable trip." His work on the television series L.A. LAW earned him an Emmy Award in 1991 and his short story "Ma Qui" was honored with a Nebula Award in 1992. His latest book, DAUGHTER OF MOLOKA'I, is a follow-up to MOLOKA'I that tells the story of Rachel Kalama's daughter Ruth, her early life, her internment during World War II, and her eventual meeting with her birth mother, Rachel. The novel explores the women's 22-year relationship, only hinted at it in MOLOKA'I. It will be published by St Martin's Press on February 19, 2019.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
9,349 global ratings
Really good read
5 Stars
Really good read
This was a very moving story about a leprosy colony in Hawaii. Well drawn characters and vivid descriptions of the environment in which they live. You will love the main character Rachel. She learns how to live and love.
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Top reviews from the United States

Peggy Lee
5.0 out of 5 stars Great historical book
Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2024
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I loved this book. It was entertaining, educational and well written. The characters really came to life and led me through the story. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in historical books and wants to learn about a part of Hawaiian history that few even know occurred.
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DK
4.0 out of 5 stars Good historical fiction
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2024
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Read for book club.

This is one I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own but I did enjoy the history and the point of view. Brennert definitely had the human level from both the POVs of those placed in the leper colony and those nuns who helped them.
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demarsland
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful book, sad and uplifting
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2024
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Great book, a very touching story. Beautifully written. Very sad story that was also uplifting. Wonderful historical piece. Highly recommended.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable and moving.
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2024
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I’ll never forget and always appreciate the haunting story of Moloka’i’s past. The stigma placed on lepers years ago is heartbreaking. They were outcasts and treated horribly. New babies were immediately taken from the parents who were forced into giving up their parental rights. Families of lepers were ashamed and often severed ties adding to the abandonment their leper relative had to indure. Rachel, the main character in this book, is determined to make the best of what life has dealt her and she perseveres. Very good book.
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annied
5.0 out of 5 stars Such interesting Hawaiian history.
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2024
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This is truly American history that I did not know. The island of Molokai is both beautiful and full of mystery. Read it.
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Susan
4.0 out of 5 stars an very interesting, novel about the history of leprosy and a successful leper colony
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2014
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This is an age old tale about the miserable lives that many disease-disabled people have endured, through millenia, due to social ignorance and lack of scientific ways to cure their medical maladies. In this historical novel, the reader is take to Hawaii, specifically to the leper colony of Moloka'i, where the main character becomes trapped in an infected body that exiles her to a life of severe discrimination and fear about her disease. Being separated from her family is only the first of many devastating situations, on the isolated Hawaiian island but she learns to create a sense of family among the inmates of the diseased community.

Over time, science and the socially-concerned take over the governing of the leper colony and some of the infected are cured of their disfiguring ailments, later returning to normal life within healthy communities. Some infected succumb to their disease and never regain their families and former lives. Throughout the plot, the heroine allows herself to become a subject for a scientific study and a possible cure for leprosy. Her actions become, in no small way, a means to eventually enact state laws that will financially, socially and emotionally support the colony, its inhabitants and the dedicated caregivers.

The author offers a superb description of the devastating effects of leprosy, not only physically, but mentally, as its victims go through the stages of the disease. The original inmates of the colony have learned to give up hope of ever again, becoming a part of a normal family; of having the resources to cure their disease; of being in exile; and languishing in the intellectual wasteland, as they wait for a painful, lonely death.

The characters are varied, the setting details are realistic and interesting and the story line is balanced with hope and despair, love and hate, joy and heartbreak, and the age-old struggle to not only cure diseases but to cure the general public's fear and loathing of those infected with such deadly illnesses. Even though leprosy has a modern cure and the world has generally accepted that the disease is not a lifelong sentence of suffering and death, the theme of the novel rings true today, since the "new" plagues are HIV-AIDS and Ebola, to name only two.

Although this novel would never win a big literary prize, the author offers much hope and dignity to those who have, or currently do, suffer from a life-threatening, highly contagious disease. Besides being a well-documented and interesting story about American history, this novel makes the reader feel that there is some justice in this world and that it can be earned by those who believe they can affect medical research and social attitudes, if even in some small way.

If you enjoy this novel, try The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama, which also delves into the topic of leprosy, in WWII Japan era.
4 people found this helpful
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Paul G. Bens, Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkably Moving Historical Fiction
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2008
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After having read the exploitative and shameful "non-fiction" work "The Colony," by John Tayman, I was a bit leery of Alan Brennert's "Moloka'i," a wholly fictional account of the one-time leper colony on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Moloka'i. I am very glad, however, that I did read Brennert's amazing novel as it gives a far more accurate portrayal of the time and the place and the people than Tayman's book ever could. It is a sweeping piece of historical fiction and an emotional (but never manipulative) journey of seven-year-old Rachel Kalama who, after being diagnosed in the late 1800s, is sent to Kalawao/Kalaupapa, the site on Moloka'i which served as a leper colony from 1866 until 1969.

Unlike Tayman (whose non-fiction account has been decried by scholars and the remaining residents of Kalaupapa themselves), Brennert does not feel the need to sensationalize the historical facts to tell his story. Brennert did his research and was wise enough to know that the story was compelling enough--it didn't need to be "ratcheted up"--to have an emotional impact upon the reader and to do justice to the thousands who lived and died at Kalawao and Kalaupapa.

While Rachel's story is fictional, Brennert acknowledges that some of the characters in the novel were loosely based upon people who had actually lived at Kalaupapa. Brennert wisely creates composite characters, taking bits and pieces from the historical records and correspondence of the time. The result is deeply affecting and rich characters, and a portrait of a people who took the worst of times and lived quiet, dignified lives a world away from their families and friends who seemed to have forgotten them. One of the pieces I am grateful that Brennert worked in was the presence of the Mahu, the gay Hawaiians who lived and breathed and were likely committed to Kalaupapa. While at first glance the Mahu character might teeter on stereotype, Brennert creates a very full character that overcomes the stereotypes.

Brennert's prose is also quiet. Simply, he creates a realism that never dares cross into exoticism of Hawai'i or of its people, but still manages to depict environ most have never experienced. He captures the idyllic setting and peoples it with human beings full of faults and foibles and courage. We get to see our heroine Rachel grow up, fall in love, marry, as well as grieve the friends (and family) who come and go out of her life throughout the decades. We are given the joys she experiences, as well as the lows, and as we live Rachel's life right along with her, we feel almost privileged to have met these remarkable people and shared in their indomitable spirit, if only for a brief time.

One of the potential pitfalls for any piece of historical fiction is info-dumping, throwing historical facts in to give the proper perspective. When handled ineptly, passages of books can begin to feel like history lessons forced upon the reader. For the most part, Brennert avoids this masterfully. Almost never does any information feel unnecessary or forced, an author showing off his research abilities. It is all woven beautifully into the prose, amazing considering the historical events depicted: the death of a King, the overthrow of a Monarchy, the advent of radio and electricity, the dawning of statehood, the bombing of a harbor. It all fits.

If I have any nit-picking to do with respect to this story, it is that, at times, the dialog feels almost too contemporary, more 21st century than late 19th. But this is a minor quibble. In the end, Brennert creates a moving story and one of the most memorable heroines I have ever met, a young girl who blossoms into womanhood and manages to live a remarkable life.

The breadth and beauty of this novel cannot be understated, and the fact that Brennert takes a difficult period of Hawaiian history and the topic of leprosy that some might find horrific and creates a life-affirming story of love and perseverance without ever venturing into maudlin sentimentality is something to be lauded. Memorable characters, memorable lives lived with dignity. I couldn't ask for more in a piece of historical fiction.

Originally reviewed for Guilty Pleasures at Uniquely Pleasurable.
29 people found this helpful
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3.0 out of 5 stars Hawaii history
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2024
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I love historical fiction and I was totally unaware of The imprisoning of lepers on the island. It's a very moving story and I learned a lot.
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Top reviews from other countries

Sunblock 40
5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous historical fiction
Reviewed in Canada on April 28, 2020
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There is no better way to learn historical fact than through a well-written, well-researched and engaging story. This is one of those books and you will get a true sense of what it must have been like for people with leprosy who lived on Moloka’i in the turn of the 20th century and beyond. Told through the story of a little girl who was sent to a leper colony on that island at a young age and what her experiences were, we are given a realistic glimpse into life what life was like there for these people shunned by society. I really enjoyed the book and look forward to reading the sequel.
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Anita Kai-Schenester
5.0 out of 5 stars Love it
Reviewed in Germany on January 19, 2020
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This book is very touching and while reading it, I get homesick for the island.
Danie - mahalo for the recommandation.
Uncle Greg you must be proud that you knew Alan.
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Anna A
5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book!
Reviewed in France on August 20, 2019
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....:)
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Client d'Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars A rich, educative, wonderful book, beautifully written. Just read it!
Reviewed in Australia on December 28, 2020
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A MUST read! This is a wonderful book. I can’t wait to read the sequel.
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Shriya
5.0 out of 5 stars I absolutely love books that can move a reader and make them ...
Reviewed in India on October 4, 2016
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OMG .. This is one of the books that was just so emotional towards the end and I was in tears .. I absolutely love books that can move a reader and make them cry !! It was definitely worth the price.. And not to forget it is a beautiful book 💖 highly recommend 👍👍👍
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